mushroom poisoning

Hi promised my dd would ask the wise Mnetters their opinion. On Saturday dgs 3.9 told her he had dug up a mushroom at nursery on Friday morning and that he was poorly. No signs of illness apart from the cough/cold he already had, he says he didn't put it in his mouth, he has been fine all weekend allthough couple of times he said had tummy ache and that it was because of mushroom. About 20 mins ago he was sick, dd worried he has been poisoned despite my reassurances.

Another boy from nursery was off on Friday with sickness so seems there could be a bug going round.

Dgs found a mushroom in garden some weeks ago and dd spent some time explaining why he must not touch them, which is why I think he says the mushroom has made him poorly.

I think he would have displayed signs of illness well before this if it were anything to do with a mushroom on Friday morning. But if I were your dd I'd like to hear reassurance from somebody professionally medically qualified.

If it was Amanita, which is the cause of most fatal fungus poisoning in this country (not that there is much - 3 in the last 100 years or something like that I think?) he would be dead by now. Which he clearly isn't.

Also there can be quite a delay between ingestion and signs of poisoning, so second taking him to the doctor, preferably with a sample of the mushroom if possible (there may be others growing in the vicinity of the one your dgs dug up).

Thanks to you all, spent 4 hours at childrens a & e in the early hours, as mable said signs of poisoning can take 2 - 5 days to show. He had bloods taken got results this morning Ok. Has to have them done again Wed. is fine in himself. Dr at hospital thinks his sickness and mushroom probably coincidence but are erring on the sign of caution as told by poison hotline.

Nursery not interested, surely someone should have been checking what he was playing with outside.

I would be furious with nursery. I have toadstools in my garden atm. Dd3 hasn't been out there today. If she had I would have gone out and cleared them away. Glad he's ok. It was always unlikely he'd been poisoned but it's so dangerous it's just not worth taking a risk over.Do you know the Horse Whisperer book/film? The author of that book poisoned himself and his wife and bil and sil by picking fungus he thought were safe. They ate quite a lot and were horribly ill. Three of them lost their renal function and are on dialysis or transplanted. Fortunately none of their dcs ate any or they would quite certainly have been killed.

Yes we are furious with the nursery dd went in this morning and found several mushrooms, when she finally spoke to the head this afternoon she said she had been told my dd had difficulty finding any, not true they were exactly where dgs said. They also said that as they have a tree and log area it is hard to see because they could be hidden by leaves and it is impossible to check under every leaf, dd replied as this was just the type of place for mushrooms it should be checked. Sadly dgs has only been attending nursery for 2 weeks and the big selling point for my dd was that children could be outside for the whole session if they want whatever the weather, dgs loves being outside and has spent most of his time playing outside even in the torrential rain we have had. DD is now undecided whether to let him stay or keep him at home, she is a childminder so he still mixes with others.

Hope he'll be okay, but yes, it's true, certain mushrooms, like webcaps (cortinarius rubellus and orellanus) are deadly, it takes a miniscule amount to be digested (or just chewed and spit out) and it can take up to three weeks for symptoms to appear.

I would be pissed off with the nursery as well, hardly a huge job to take a stick and look under the leaves for them (unless their garden is a size of a football field).